Audiovox Adds Home, Mobile Categories
By Joseph Palenchar and Amy Gilroy -- TWICE, 1/8/2008 11:48:00 AM
LAS VEGAS — Audiovox is planting itself firmly in powerline networking, wireless home control, and Internet radio here at International CES, where the company is also expanding its selection of RCA-brand flash-memory camcorders, launching the industry’s first slider-style portable media player (PMP) and offering a digital message board for kitchen use.
The company is also unveiling a wide selection of tabletop radios, some with HD Radio, some with iPod docks and iTunes tagging and some with slots for plug-in XM mini-tuners. A pair of tabletop speaker systems for plug-and-play XM tuners is also on display. (See Jan. 7 issue of TWICE.)
In mobile electronics, Audiovox showed its first self-installed headrest monitor/DVD system, which is about half the price of many custom-installed headrest systems. “We think this will open up the market to new users,” said Audiovox Electronics president Tom Malone. The system includes two headrests with built-in screens, with one headrest featuring built-in DVD player. It has adjustable posts and a choice of sleeves to match the interior colors of most vehicles. The new system, under the Movies2Go line, will carry a suggested price of $699.
In Internet radio, the company is launching its first models, including two versions of the RCA-brand Infinite Radio with analog AM/FM, USB Host, Wi-Fi 802.11b/g, and direct access to a custom Web radio aggregation service and to Slacker’s personalized Internet radio service. The RIR200 retails for a suggested $99, but the $149 RIR205 adds a companion “Wi-Fi enabler,” a transmitter/receiver that plugs into a wired home-network router and makes it unnecessary to use Wi-Fi setup software.
An Acoustic Research tabletop radio with Internet radio, iPod dock and Apple authentication chip is due in the second quarter, based on the cosmetics of the $199-suggested ART1 iPod-docking tabletop analog-AM/FM radio with cherrywood cabinet.
In entering the no-new-wires network market, the company unveiled an array of devices based on the HD-PLC powerline-network standard championed by Panasonic. All are due in the second half, including Ethernet adapters, router, A/V digital media adapter (DMA), and HDMI transmitter/receiver pair to deliver 1080p video from a DVR or other set-top box to a wall-hanging flat-panel TV. Also planned are an AR-branded powered speakers at a suggested $149 per speaker, an iPod dock that communicates with the powered speakers and with an adapter connected to a legacy stereo system, an HD-PLC/Wi-Fi bridge and a combination seven-outlet surge suppressor with four-port router.
The wireless home-control products will be based on the Z-Wave mesh-network standard; some are due later this year, with most following in the first half of 2009. Some products are designed to monitor and control energy usage in the house from in-home controllers, remote PCs and cellphones. Another product is an AR-branded iPod dock with Z-Wave remote that displays the iPod’s menu and song data on an LCD screen. The dock connects to legacy stereo systems but also sends music via 2.4GHz wireless to a pair of wireless-equipped indoor AR speakers and an outdoor AR speaker that doubles as exterior on-wall lights.
In portable devices, the company launched four new RCA/Lyra-branded MP3 players and PMPs, including the $149-suggested Lyra 6008 slider with 8GB embedded memory, microSD slot and color screen that slides up to reveal a navigation wheel.
The company is also expanding its Small Wonder selection of flash-memory camcorders to three with the addition of a $149-suggested model targeted to sports enthusiasts and a $99 model targeted to 18- to 25-year-olds. The later enables users to upload videos directly to YouTube without copying the video to a PC.
The home-base digital-message center, built around a 7-inch digital picture frame, features a built-in calendar that stores audio reminders by day and date. It also lets family members leave audio messages. A step-up version with built-in video camera lets members leave video messages. Erasable markers can also be used to leave messages written onto the device’s front face and LCD screen. It mounts to refrigerators and walls or sits on a countertop. The audio-only version ships in March at a suggested $149, and the video version ships about 45 days later at $199.
